Selected from Joseph Smith’s July 1828 revelation
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Location Given: Harmony, Pennsylvania – Hale Farm
Background: Martin Harris was a respectable, but superstitious wealthy man who lived near the Smith family in Palmyra, New York. He had even paid Joseph Smith Sr. to dig a well for him. Joseph Smith Jr. had once found a lost object for Martin Harris with the use of his seer stone. Smith Jr. told Harris about the Golden Plates between 1827-1828, and Harris gave him $50 (equivalent of nearly $1,400 in 2021) to translate the plates.
Soon after moving to the Hale family farm, Emma Hale briefly served as the scribe for The Book of Mormon. However, Harris worked as the scribe that wrote down most of the dictation of the first 116 pages of The Book of Mormon, “The Book of Lehi”, between April 12th and June 14th in 1828.
Harris was criticized by his family for spending his time and money on this project. Harris pressured Smith to allow him to show the manuscript to his wife. Smith Jr. was reluctant, but Harris was persistent and he eventually conceded. Harris set out for his home in Palmyra, New York on June 14th, 1828. After he had shown his family, the manuscript disappeared from the place that Harris had been hiding it. Harris was later depicted as being careless with the manuscript.
Harris was supposed to quickly return to Harmony Pennsylvania, and after 2 weeks Smith and Hale grew so anxious that Smith took a trip to Palmyra, despite the couple having just had their first child die near or during childbirth on June 15th, 1828. Smith discovered that the manuscript had been lost and he became distraught. Smith would later claim that the Golden Plates and “interpreters” had been taken from him by an angel and he lost the ability to translate prior to discovering that The Book of Lehi had been lost. Smith eventually turned to his seer stone for Divine guidance and this was the revelation that came from that.
1. The works and the designs and the purposes of God cannot be frustrated; neither can they come to naught.
2. For God doth not walk in crooked paths, neither doth God turn to the right hand nor to the left, neither doth He vary from that which He hath said; therefore, His paths are straight, and His course is one eternal round.
3. Remember, remember that it is not the work of God that is frustrated, but the work of men;
4. For although a man may have many revelations and have power to do many mighty works, yet if he boasts in his own strength, and sets at naught the counsels of God, and follows after the dictates of his own will and carnal desires, he must fall and incur the vengeance of a just God upon him.
5. And behold, how oft you have transgressed the commandments and the laws of God and have gone on in the persuasions of men.
6. For, behold, you should not have feared man more than God.
7. Although men set at naught the counsels of God and despise his words—yet you should have been faithful, and He would have extended His arm and supported you against all the fiery darts of the adversary, and He would have been with you in every time of trouble.
8. But remember, God is merciful; therefore, repent of that which thou hast done which is contrary to the commandment which I gave you, and thou art still chosen, and art again called to the work.